Belief

Have you ever seen something–a garden gate perhaps, a picture hanging on a cafe wall, an odd, unexpected object in an odd and expected place–that made you stop and look again. That stirred your heart, maybe your gut, a place deep within?

I love connecting with a picture, a story, a random object.

Imagine if something I made did the same for someone else. Even if I never publish anything, connecting with someone through something I created would mean wonders.

When I was 16, I read this book, The Truth about Unicorns. I’ve blogged about it before. I loved that book so much, when I got to the end, I went straight back to the beginning and read it again. Why did I love it?

I don’t know.

But that book reached me. Maybe this is problem. I want to write a book like that book made me feel.

Or how Watership Down made me feel.

Or The Phantom Tollbooth.

Mama Day.

But how does one write a book like that?

I don’t know. But that’s why I write. Eight novels and a pile of short stories, and I haven’t written that story yet as far as I can tell. I believe in that story, and one day I’m going to write it.

What book do you aspire to?

String Theory Childhood

Have you heard the theory that there are countless parallel universes, that at particular moments in your life when one decision was made, another universe began with another you who lived the choice you didn’t make.

dad

What moment in your childhood would change where you are now? Of course, perhaps it the small forgotten decision that made all the difference. You’re alive because you took an extra minute to tie your shoe and so you weren’t on your bike in the intersection when the truck ran the stop sign. But those moments you can never know.

When I look back I think about the day when I was in the 6th grade and my dad chose to believe his wife, my step-mother, instead of me. Perhaps I wouldn’t have gone to live with my mother. If hadn’t gone to live with my mother, she wouldn’t have needed to move. If she’d hadn’t have moved, we wouldn’t have ended up living with her boyfriend. I’d be telling a different story today.

What happened though was that my father said, “I don’t understand why you’d say that. She works hard to make our home nice. I want you to try harder. She’s had a hard life, and she only wants what’s best.”

In the string theory, not only is there a world where I stayed with my father, there is also a world where he and his second wife never got together at all. I like to think a me is out there who experienced a tranquil childhood.

That me probably wouldn’t be a writer.

When I decided to live with my mother, I needed to lie. I left for my summer visitation, and on the way out the door, I kissed my dad’s cheek. “See you in two weeks,” I said.

But in two weeks my dad didn’t see me. He didn’t see me for almost a year because the judge wouldn’t allow it. Maybe there’s a universe where the judge told me to return to my dad and step-mother. I don’t want to know that universe.

Our universe though remains the only one we have access to. It doesn’t do much good to tell a child in trouble–you’re okay in another universe.

Believe your child. When they’re older, they’ll remember the person who believed.

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This is part of a blog hop–Self as Child. Plum Tree works to promote children’s art and stories (please submit!).

Other writers participating: Tonia at Passionfind, C.C.Cole, Deb Hockenberry, and more to come.

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On a side note–I’m writing very short stories for Story-a-Day May! Stories are here. Are you writing?

May is here. May is here. Life is stories, and life is fears…

I think the loveliest time of the year is the pub date, I do. Don’t you? Course you do!

Wait. What?

(A gold star to whomever gets the reference in my blog post title.)

I’m taking part in Story-a-Day May. Are you? I’ll post the stories over at The Fairy Tale Asylum. At the end of the month I may be locked up with rest of the inmates…

Do you participate in writing challenges?

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For artists–or rather for parents of artists–remember Youth Tube at Plum Tree Books. We are always looking for submissions of children’s art.

The Plague

I’m going to move into my house, set up my work space, and presto! Magic will happen.

I’ll finish all my art projects and start preparing for my next show.

I’ll finally know how to write that synopsis.

I’ll be brilliant.

I’ll get published.

Right?

This house business has pushed and shoved over so many things–including my rational thought.

I bet I can flail around as much in the house as I do in this apartment. Only I’ll have more bills.

All the advice I’ve been given by smart and helpful people, and still I dither and whine… Many brilliant and hard-working writers are waiting for attention. The publishing business isn’t going to miss me. It would have to know me to miss me…

Do you suffer from “if…then…” thinking? Or maybe “as soon as I…then I’ll…”

I have a plague of it over here.

I’ve read a lo…

I’ve read a lot of words of wisdom on this synopsis business, but I don’t know why I am so horrifically stuck. 

Hey, I’ve had a lot of fun writing a DSM for Writers, but that is a distraction. Obviously. 

So, my desperate act is to ask if anyone out there is a fast reader who likes YA fiction with a dark side and would be willing to give this novel a read and help me out. Just a thought. Maybe I could give you some art for your trouble. 

But I am trying on my own. Yep. 

Plum Art

A few years ago when I was asked to have my first art show in a coffee shop, I thought I’d go along with that crazy idea, and that would be that. I’d be able to say I’d had a show.

From Plum Tree Books

A few years later and I’m Head of Art for Youth Tube at Plum Tree Books! This is a new role for me and I’m figuring it out as I go.

Today, I want to announce that Plum Tree is now open for submissions of children’s art. If you have a young one 12 or under, and they’d love to share their work with a broader audience, let me know.

We are looking for art by children to post to our site. We’ll be adding links and stories and other things for the 12 and under set. Send me a message if you’d like the details for submissions.

marta (at) youth-tube (dot) co (dot) uk

Remember, art is cool.

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P.S. Please note the Plum Tree has several other projects in the works–poetry, fiction, music, and photography. Go see for yourself.

A Book Straight Jacket

Okay. Huge thanks to everyone who commented on that last post (or sent a very helpful email). So, I’ve been trying and retrying to come up with the flap copy for a book that is written but not published.

I was using the word synopsis, but it seems to be accurate, I should’ve just called it a book jacket or flap copy. Something like that. You know, that little bit in the book jacket that makes you want to take the jacket off and see what’s there.

Of course, a dozen details come to mind–as in, this will be an interesting part to mention. Sigh. But as one commenter said, “Less is more.”

If this is a book jacket, would this be enough?

What happened on that one drive home to change the fate of sixteen-year-old Fran? She wants nothing more than to forget the drive and the boy who took her home. But when her best friend, Chesnie, plots revenge on her behalf, neither girl expects the dark places they will go.

That leaves out a lot. But I’ve struggled with how to get more details in without sounding like, then, then, and then…

What happened that one late night drive home to change the fate of sixteen-year-old Fran? She wants nothing more than to forget the drive and the boy who took her home. Her best friend, Chesnie, has other plans, but revenge leads to unexpected places. The girls find themselves in the local brothel, but only one girl is free to leave.

What, if anything, of the previous effort should be here?

What is this so bloody difficult?

Synopsiphobia Smackdown

So, an agent has asked for a synopsis that reads like a book jacket. I’m not to give too much away, but to sell the story.

I feel the same way about a synopsis as I did about an outline in school.

But anyway. Here is my dumb idea of the day. Let me rephrase that. Here is my idea to toughen my skin.

I’m going to post my little book jacket attempt here. I’d love some feedback. (Yep. Love!) The usual grammar and typo mistakes pointed out. Does it sound compelling? Should it be a little longer? What else might I add? Subtract? You know…tell me that vague inexplicable thing that I want! (You can do that, can’t you?)

So. Here it is: The Blue Jar

Two best friends, Fran and Chesnie, 16, fear the same thing—Chesnie’s older brother Charlie. They both know his violence and his need for control.

Fran wants to forget everything that happened the night Charlie gave her a ride home. Chesnie wants revenge for that night and many others, and she thinks she knows how to make her brother suffer. She steals the blue jar, a sentimental, precious object, from Charlie’s room and goes with Fran into the woods at midnight. With magic Chesnie learned from her grandmother, Milla, the girls cast a spell to get what they each want, but while Charlie ends up in the hospital, his anger and impulses remain intact.

The girls move in with Milla, a midwife and potions-maker, because she is the only adult who believes them and keeps them safe. Safety, however, fails to solve everything as easily as they expect.

Fran bewilders her boyfriend who won’t give up on her no matter how she rejects him. She ignores her parents whose marriage is ending. She underestimates Chesnie’s need for revenge and where it will lead—from a safe haven to a house of prostitution, from desire to violence.

Thank you.

“What kind of person writes a book like that?”

This is the question my mother-in-law asked about The Hunger Games. Now, she didn’t ask in a harsh judgmental way, but in a true mystified way.

My first thought was, “A person like me.”

She’s never read anything I’ve written, and I’m afraid if I ever get published and she reads my work, she will be just as baffled.

That she went to see the film surprised me. She knew nothing about the book and she doesn’t like fantastical, impossible things. She went to see what all the fuss was about, but she didn’t understand it at all. She had no reference points for the story. The story wasn’t good or bad because there wasn’t anything she could relate to.

She likes stories about things that can really happen.

When I talked about the book, she said nodded. “That helps me understand the film more.” And she liked Katniss, a strong female lead.

Dystopian novels aren’t for everyone–I’m not a huge fan of bleak futures either. But I’m always curious about why certain types of people only like “real” stories.

What does it say about individuals who love fantasy, sci-fi, magical realism, and such? Why can one person get lost in these stories, and others can’t. Others spend the whole time knowing this is impossible, not real, no way. Why do some people have a great ability to suspend belief?

I can think of the good and bad things that might say about the person. Since I love those fantastical stories, I focus on the good points…

My in-laws have no idea what I write. Should they ever read anything, well, they’re under no obligation to understand it.

Chronicles of Ink and Paper

One agent suggested my novel was young adult. This surprised me because I wasn’t trying to write a young adult novel. The main character is a teenager though. But I never thought I was writing for teens.

Writing for teens…that’s a minefield. Well, it can be. Adults are allowed to read anything without much of the world getting into a snit. Okay, that isn’t entirely true, but you know what I mean. Suddenly what had seemed tamed in my novel then seemed dangerous.

Which isn’t to say the agent was wrong. I just hadn’t seen my novel in that category, and if I need it to be in that category, how will I be expected to change it? And my other novels…will I be expected to be a young adult author?

This is rather putting the cart before the horse. (The printer before in the paper?) The agent who suggested this decided she couldn’t represent my work–too tough a sell in today’s climate.

The thing is though is that I am liberal when it comes to reading. My parents let me read anything I picked up. My grandmother had treated my mother the same way. If you could choose the book and stick with it, you could handle whatever was inside.

Of course, I never picked up anything extreme, like porn. Well, that’s not entirely true. My dad’s second wife had a magazine of stories hidden–sort of–under her pillow. My step-sister showed them to me. I was about 10 or 11. The magazine looked like Reader’s Digest. I read half a page and put it down. The story gave me quite a shock and I knew I didn’t want to (and shouldn’t) read those stories. So, I didn’t stick with it.

Nor did it cause me to rush out and find a boy.

Au contraire.

But anyway. Adults worry a lot about what young adults read. And they should know what kids read and they should know their kids. Obviously. We know this and have heard it before.

But it felt different when I thought about being the writer instead of the parent. Writing for adults is so much easier! Right?

Young people are better fans though. Don’t you think? Do you love any book now as much as you loved a book as a teen?